Gm27 @SJ: Roller coaster ride continues with nausea-inducing result in 5-4 overtime loss to San Jose

Through two periods of hockey, Thursday was on track to be a doubly good day for Carolina Hurricanes hockey. First, news broke from the NHL Board of Governors meeting that Peter Karmanos had signed a purchase agreement to purchase a majority interest in the Carolina Hurricanes. The deal still needs league approval, but this time around the money is there and terms have been agreed to which makes the probability very high that the deal will close.

Then on Thursday night, the Hurricanes were on their way to a much-needed win to claw back to a respectable 1-1 record through the first third of the six-game road trip. And then all of a sudden, they weren’t.

Coming out of a lackluster loss on Tuesday in Vancouver, Coach Bill Peters shuffled the deck swapping Klas Dahlbeck in for Haydn Fleury and completely revamping the forward lines.

The new combinations worked instantly. The game featured a well-timed bout of a fast scoring start for the Hurricanes. As beleaguered as the Hurricanes offense has been at times during the 2017-18 season, the team has also had a knack for flying out of the gate on occasion and posting an early lead on the way to a win. The game felt a bit like similar wins over the Oilers, the Maple Leafs and the Islanders that saw similar scoring outbursts early in the game.

A couple nifty passing plays staked the Hurricanes to an early 3-0 lead. First, Noah Hanifin had another heady offensive play from between the face-off circles which is becoming his office in the offensive zone. He fed Sebastian Aho at the side of the crease for an easy goal. Then Elias Lindholm found Victor Rask. And then Teuvo Teravainen found Sebastian Aho for his second tally of the period. Cam Ward saw a light work load but was flawless early which was important given some of the recent struggles in net. And suddenly scoring and the game of hockey seemed easy again.

As has been the case too often this season, the second period took a step toward dicey when the San Jose Sharks scored to make it 3-1 on a shorthanded goal and then continued to push. The deciding point of the game for me was a sequence that saw Cam Ward make a huge glove save on a 2-on-1 rush, and then Skinner/Staal/Williams scored a sheer desire goal with Williams getting the puck to the front of the net and the Skinner, Staal and Williams take turns determinedly whacking at it until it was behind the goalie. That sequence saw the Hurricanes go up 4-1 instead of dropping to 3-2. That sequence became even more significant when Joe Thornton scored a power play goal through a screen late in the second period to make it 4-2 heading into the third period.

The front part of the third period had the Hurricanes playing the right kind of hockey fighting for pucks and making simple plays to push play forward into the offensive zone, but the Sharks’ third special teams strike of the game near the midway period pulled the Sharks to within 4-3 with with a power play marker. Then to add insult to special teams injury, the Hurricanes allowed their second shorthanded goal of the game near the midway point of the third period to turn an early 3-0 lead into a 4-4 game. From that point forward, the San Jose siege was on. A number of near misses and possibly the mercy of the hockey gods pushed the game to overtime.

And then what looked so promising early turned into more torture for the loyal Caniacs who stayed up until 1am. Brent Burns sneaked behind Sebastian Aho and finished on the first shift of overtime to inexplicably turn a 3-0 lead into a 5-4 loss in overtime.

Notes from the Carolina Hurricanes 5-4 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks

1) Riding an early burst

As noted above, for being a team that has had trouble scoring, it has had a knack for the occasional scoring outburst right out of the gate. Thursday was exactly that with three goals in the first period.

2) Peters’ line shuffling

To be honest, when I saw Peters’ line combinations from the morning skate, they looked random to me. But be it chemistry or just creating a spark, the lines seemed to work. Each of the Hurricanes top three lines netted a goal. Sebastian Aho playing with Derek Ryan and Teuvo Teravainen could have had three or four goals. The Skinner/Staal/Williams line could easily have had more than the one Skinner scored. And Rask scored on a pretty pass from Lindholm.

3) Capitulation day for the special teams

The much-maligned power play has been a talking point all season. The penalty kill ranks slightly higher but really has not been up to snuff either relative to really strong 2015-16 and 2016-17 campaigns. Thursday was nothing short of a special teams disaster. The penalty kill allowed two goals on three chances. And to add insult to injury in utterly bizarre fashion, the power play also allowed two goals in three tries. (For those who did not watch the game and are reading this on Friday, you read it right. The Hurricanes power play ALLOWED two shorthanded goals on three power plays.

4) Failure to play a full 60 minutes

When the Hurricanes escaped the second period that has been an Achilles heel for them with a 4-2 lead, one had to feel good about the state of the game. But when San Jose dialed it up in the third period, the Hurricanes were unable to respond and mostly just hung on for dear life the rest of the way. The biggest story exiting the game was the Hurricanes deer in the headlights play when the Sharks challenged and team’s inability to finish.

5) The two sides of Noah Hanifin

Hanifin picked another assist from stepping up into the play in the offensive zone which highlighted his growing offensive game. But at the same time, he had a tough night defensively. He allowed an odd man rush when he stepped up at the wrong time. He had Tomas Hertl beat him one one one from the side boards straight to the front of the net. And he took away absolutely nothing in terms of passing lane on the Sharks shorthanded goal to tie the game at 4-4.

6) On the positive side of the ledger

Trevor van Riemsdyk continued his run of steady play. He was solid defensively and also picked up an assist.

Sebastian Aho had a tremendous game in terms of putting himself in position to receive and score. In scoring twice, he was actually only okay at the finishing part and could have had one or two more.

The Hurricanes did get a point on the road against a good team. If not for how it went down, that could be a positive.

After a night to sleep on the result, it will be interesting to see where this lands on the growing list of befuddling losses.

Next up is another late night affair in Los Angeles on Saturday.

Go Canes!

16 Comments

goaliedad
on December 8, 2017 at 6:42 am

I went to bed last night at the end of the first period pretty confident we had a road win. A 3-0 lead should be pretty safe, right? Wrong. I just finished watching this epic disaster. This is the type of game that gets coaches fired. Or GM’s. Or both. But I doubt that will happen with the pending sale. So this team, and coach, will just keep chugging along, broken, as the fans watch them drop further and further behind…

HAHAHAHAHAHA it was 4-2 when I went to bed. Not that I actually watched being that my lesson is long past learned, I just happened to check the score out of sheer curiosity and I guess boredom. I KNEW I would see an overtime loss this morning. It’s so cliche with these guys. The level of incompetence is unbelievable. As goaliedad said. They’ll just keep beating a dead, decomposed, maggot infested horse until years after I die. It’ll never change.. Cleveland Browns of the NHL. Difference is that the Browns will always have a fan base no matter how pathetic they are. We will be lucky to have 5,000 fans in PNC by season’s end. You won’t see my arse. Bet that.

Great summary Matt, far not eloquent than the team deserves after that.

Hanafin has amazing gifts, but to add to your statement – I don’t think he did his job defending on EITHER shorthanded rush. You need to take away the pass!

I think what’s happening in his case is he’s still learning the difference between what he can think and how quickly his body can react. I know he’s growing and I think he’s shown a shorter learning curve than Skinner in this regard, but he still needs to learn to play within himself a bit… though I remain convinced he’s the most talented defender on the Canes… even if it doesn’t manifest itself consistently quite yet.

What a great first period though, right? I also wasn’t sure about the combinations but they made sense in practice… which made the ultimate collapse all the more gut wrenching.

I think the team remains short on talent and experience. Was hoping the offseason moves would make enough of a difference, but clearly the team still needs to find a way to add without giving up much, because they can’t afford to give up on the youth and potential. Tough spot.

I am not sure what Hanifin was thinking on the SHG. His role was to take away the pass – yet he left his man completely uncovered with an open net to shoot for. Ward had the shooter locked down. Hanifin needed to stay on his man (or much closer to him to allow reaction time to the pass). That was a bad hockey play.

The wheels on the bus go round and round…this is by far a culture issue.

I think even the ‘hope and dreamers’ of our current roster are seeing the reality that you cannot build a winning environment without players of killer instinct.

With the Dundon deal pending, this may allow PK to open the wallet a bit since he has someone else to offset the future financial risks, perhaps make a splash and salvage the season?

We’ve done this wrong from the start of the season. 1) Bring in multiple players with killer instinct. 2) Players with killer instinct build a winners mentality and CAN DO culture. 3) Young players learn how to win from these players and develop their own killer instinct at the national league level.

I watched until end of third period, then went to bed, knew they would lose.
OMG!!!! Fire Rod B as power play coach!!!!!
At this point, I have no respect for Peters or Francis, do your Fing Job,
I have made a huge investment as season ticket holder sinc 1997, missed one year, sorry about this in advance, but F___ do something Francis!!
Get rid of Phil D, McGinn, Ryan SUCKS SO BAD, rumor – trade Faulk for Pachorety if Montreal, do something you idiot (I am an investor – approx $35-$40K so far, make a freaking move!!!!
One more loss, fire Peters, let Steve Smith run this team and put Rid in weight room!!!!
We have young talent!!!!!!
and to many B____ AHL players around the talent, your making them fail!!!!
Get off your ASS Ron F or resign!!!

Yeah, sorry I know this has been me at times, I can get a little overly emotional.. So I’ll try to work on that. But, is there a way you can make the comments delete-able? Cause if I go off on a tirade and later on am embarrassed at least I can go back and take it down lol. Just an idea idk if that’s an option or not.

It was a disheartening loss indeed. I stuck it out to the ugly end, fortunately with a beverage of choice.

I have never seen statistics on “win/loss after a 3 goal lead”, but it would not be surprising if the canes are at the bottom of the league in this category. It also wouldn’t be surprising if BP, as a coach, has a very poor record in this category. If so, it means the 3 goal lead collapses are systematic and not player-personnel related. This is something our leadership group needs to get a handle on and do something different. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity.

This is fixable. A 3 goal lead is generally considered to be the “insurmountable” threshold, but somehow, we manage to consistently get completely different results after the 3 goal threshold is reached.

The “5-11” line or ART line was fantastic in the first period, but looked like they were skating through glue for much of the rest of the game. Like they had brakes on. Not sure why that would be.

For perspective, though, I did grow up in the Cleveland Browns “dog pound” and remain a fan. Being a canes fan is a lot more fun than that!

As I thought about last night – how can a team that rolled to a 3-0 lead, with some nifty passing and shooting, and then a 4-1 lead, with hard net-front presence, against the Sharks fall apart at the end like that.

Most came from individual mistakes:
Hanifin’s defensive slip on the PP.
One screened shot on the PK.
Williams giveaway on the PP and his inability to catch the breaking Shark. Meanwhiile Hanifin tries to take away time/space from the Shark with the goal when his real play in a 2-on-1 is to take away the pass (granted he was very close to the blue line).
Aho giving the front of the net to Burns in OT.

None of it had to do with the lack of a 1C (not when you have already scored 4 goals) – a lot of it had to do with bad individual and team moves against an aggressive Shark team which had seized control of the game. That’s “culture”, as lfd suggests above, and “confidence” as Faulk suggested after the Vancouver game. I amm not sure what the fix is for that. I don’t think it is wholesales changes in personnel – although I like the idea of bringing up some Charlotte players. I don’t think it is changes in team leadership – even Williams fell flat during crunch time.

I think it’s going to come down to Bill Peters. He’s done such a great job at developing this team, but he has yet to take it to the playoffs. I’d hate to see him, as a person, be the sacrificial lamb of a change to push us to the playoffs, but honestly, a coaching change is one of the few moves that can single-handedly energize a team.
My eye is on three non-NHL employed coaches right now:
1. Darryl Sutter
2. Bob Hartley
3. Dave Tippett

It’ll suck if we miss the playoffs again but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. I think it would be better to have a proven playoff coach though. We now have a seven-year window where we can’t move, so we have time for Ron’s slow-burn rebuild to pay off. I apologize to those whose hearts won’t last that long.

I have finally had it. 3-0 and we give up a shorty on a bad line change. Then we give up another one. WTF! Can’t believe I am saying this but Brindy needs to go. Team needs some kind of shake up. We help teams beat us and I am sick of it. It’s just painful Change is needed

An experienced coach is exactly what this team needs. I like Bill. He’s a good coach. But these young kids need someone with fire and passion that’ll light a fire under them. I said the other day I think Tortorella would be a great fit. Obviously Torts won’t be making a change but someone in that mold would be a welcome sight in my opinion. I’m tired of the same stories and excuses about “we weren’t good enough in the third” and “we didn’t match their intensity”. After a while they’re just meaningless words. Someone needs to actually do something differently.

I watched until the tying goal and could not stand it any more. The mistakes are just not acceptable. I had commented a while ago that Bridy needs to go. I totally respect the history but we are at the point now where we need to decline the penalties. There was just nothing good about this game. We have a loosing culture. We routinely have mistakes and give games away. If we are scoring we allow other teams to score just a little more. If our goalies are great we still allow just enough to loose these games. Sad part of it is, we have talent. We should be in a much better position then we are in, 1C or not.

I do not see RF reacting. He has his vision and it does not matter if PNC will be empty. It has always been spend no money to get what we really need, develop from within. Who knows, maybe years form now it works. Now that new management is coming maybe RF will be able to spend. It is time for heads to roll but I doubt RF will do anything.

I see us not making the playoff but not being bad enough to get a good draft pick. We are back where we started from. This game reminded me of the giveaways early last season.

It should be obvious to all rational observers, that WE HAVE A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM HERE! One or two blowups can happen, but after shooting yourself in the foot ONCE…you would think you would do as much as possible to avoid a 2nd occurrence! Eh???
…you will run out of feet pretty soon…?
I’m appalled Ronnie has done NOTHING, ZILCH, NADA…!
Peters has been ineffective…at best! Last year I applauded his public, vocal criticism of Lack (a necessary move, to get his…and the team’s attention). This year…Silence…not GOLDEN!??
I’m fed up…, I gave up on the Cleveland Browns and NFL several years ago, and I’m on the verge of repeating that with this dysfunctional GROUP! My patience is very thin……..